§ Mr. O'DONNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Commissioners of National Education, in making the appointment of headmaster to the Inchicore model schools, Dublin, will recognise the desire of the parents of children attending that school that their children should be taught Irish by appointing a man who knows Irish?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Commissioners of National Education are not aware that the parents of the pupils of the Inchicore model school have expressed any desire for instruction in Irish, and no Irish has been taught in the school. Vacancies in model schools are announced in the public Press, and candidates are invited to send forward their applications, with a statement of their qualifications, to the Education Office. The applications are submitted at a stated meeting of the Commissioners, and the candidate considered most suitable is elected. The same course will be pursued in this case.
§ Mr. HUGH LAWasked the Chief Secretary whether it is the practice of the National Commissioners of National Education in Ireland to defer promotion from a, lower to a higher grade till the 1st April, following the completion of three years' satisfactory service at the maximum salary of the lower grade; whether the effect of this practice is, in many cases, to retard promotion for a period of from one to eleven months; and whether the Commissioners propose to make any change in their method of dealing with these cases?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Commissioners of National Education inform me that teachers of national schools must, as a rule, remain three years on the maximum income of a grade before their claim for promotion to a higher grade can be considered, but their promotion does not follow as a matter of course from fulfilment of this condition; it merely renders them eligible for promotion from the ensuing 1st April should their ability and general attainments warrant it, and should other necessary conditions be complied with. The Commissioners do not consider that their procedure in this matter can be rightly described as "deferring" or "retarding" promotion.
1958WThe rule by which promotions in grade date from the 1st April is a necessary one, and applies to all teachers. The Commissioners have no present intention of altering it.